THE GREAT EXHIBITION

The Great Exhibition in 1851 was the first international exhibition of manufactured products. It was organised by Henry Cole and Prince Albert, and held in a purpose-built CRYSTAL Palace in Hyde Park. Many of the objects in the Exhibition were used as the first collection for the South Kensington Museum which opened in 1857 and later became the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The Crystal Palace

A competition for a building to house the Great Exhibition produced 248 PLANS. The Building Committee disliked them all and attempted to design their own, putting together ideas from a number of entries. Not only was this regarded by contemporary critics as unethical, the result was also totally unsuitable. The Committee's plan, published in May 1850, would have taken 15 months to build and needed some 15 million bricks for its construction. The scheduled opening day was 1 May 1851.

The Crystal Palace used 300,000 sheets in the largest size ever made (4ft 1in x 10ins/1.3m x 25.3cm). STEAM engines on site drove the machinery to cut the wooden glazing bars as well as the 24 miles (40km) of Paxton's patent guttering used to hold the glass in position on his simple but effective ridge and furrow roof.

Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria, organised The Great Exhibition (with the help of Henry Cole – the inventor of the Christmas card).

The main aim of The Great Exhibition was for Great BRITAIN to show off, demonstrating its inventiveness and modern industrial designs and ideas to the rest of the world.

The Crystal Palace measured 564 metres by 138 metres and was constructed from thousands panes of glass. After the exhibition, it was moved from Hyde Park to Sydenham in south London, where it was extended. This area of London is now known as Crystal Palace.

Unfortunately, The Crystal Palace was destroyed by fire in 1936.

Over 6 million people visited the Great Exhibition. It was a massive success and the money it raised was used to set up the NATURAL History Museum, the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Many famous Victorians attended, including: Charles Darwin, Samuel Colt, Charles Dickens, Emily Bronte, George Eliot and Lewis Caroll.

Over 100,000 objects were on display in The CRYSTAL Palace – half of these were from Britain.

Some of the exhibits included: a massive hydraulic press (designed by Stevenson), a steam hammer, counting machines, carpets, ribbons, printing machines, musical instruments, carriages, early versions of bicycles, agricultural machines, guns and watches.

The famous Koh-i-Noor diamond was on display at the Great Exhibition.

In the centre of the glass building stood a FOUNTAIN constructed from pink glass. This was 27 feet high.

The Crystal Palace featured the first public toilet CUBICLES. The inventor of these, George Jennings, charged a penny. This is where the expression ‘spend a penny’ comes from.